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Sat, April 16, 2005
Hero denied benefits
GENERAL'S IGNORING OF VETERAN'S QUESTIONS AN EMBARRASSMENT THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED BY DEFENCE MINISTER, PETER WORTHINGTON BELIEVES
By PETER WORTHINGTON, TORONTO SUN
CLIFF CHADDERTON, the aging tiger who fights for veterans, is on the warpath. At a Canadian Club luncheon on April 12 where retired chief of defence staff, Gen. Paul Manson, spoke about the new Canadian War Museum, Mr. Chadderton was snubbed when he tried to ask a question.
As the chairman of the National Council of Veteran Associations, representing 50 Canadian veterans groups, he is the single most powerful voice veterans have.
And on this day, wearing all his medals, using two walking sticks, and in considerable pain from shrapnel still in his back from World War II, he sought to interest Gen. Manson and an assortment of MPs and senators at the luncheon in the case of Cliff Wenzel.
Wenzel is one of Canada's genuine heroes of the war.
An RCAF bomber pilot, he won a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in World War II, an Air Force Cross (AFC) flying in the Berlin Blockade, and flew against Malaysian insurgents and in the Korean War.
When Wenzel left the RCAF in 1960, it was deemed "not in the public interest" and he was denied a reduced pension for his 20 years of service -- 14 of them as a flight-lieutenant. Manson not only ignored Chadderton, but his question was cut off by the national anthem. Manson scolded Chadderton for asking a question.
Wenzel's lawyer, Michel Drapeau, says the only question from the floor that Manson answered was one from a woman about sheep grazing the grounds around the Vimy Ridge memorial in France.
Defence Minister Bill Graham has promised to look into Wenzel's case, which is really a right versus wrong issue and cries to be corrected -- especially in this "Year of the Veteran."
And Manson is an air force man, for heaven's sake.
Possibly he resents someone whose medals were won in war, which Manson has never experienced.
Chadderton, the old soldier, is keenly aware of the significance of the DFC and AFC and suspects the "not in the public interest" slur was because the RCAF wanted to use Wenzel's expertise in Canada's then-developing aircraft industry.
For someone with Wenzel's unique flying talents, says Chadderton, "it is difficult to imagine that in this Year of the Veteran a government would be so heartless as to deny (him) a combination of benefits."
Chadderton was "aghast," as were others, that Gen. Manson paid tribute to cadets in his speech, but studiously ignored both Chadderton and Wenzel and the luncheon table filled with medal-wearing vets that was directly in front of the podium.
Chadderton -- like Wenzel and Drapeau -- is nothing if not a fighter for causes he believes in. And veterans are his specialty.
"Disasters are strewn across the path of people like me, but they have a difficult time in shutting me up because many people in the ballroom of the Chateau Laurier were well aware of who I was and that obviously I knew something about the situation," says Chadderton in a letter, which he's forwarded to Bill Graham.
Chadderton challenges "the powers that be" to explain the term "not in the public interest" in denying Wenzel's reduced pension.
The importance of the AFC and DFC and Wenzel's performance under fire exceeds the qualifications of most who attended the luncheon honouring the war museum. Wenzel's case now rests with Bill Graham himself.
There are indications that he will recommend that the new military ombudsman look into it -- which itself seems a copout and more of the syndrome of shifting decisions to someone else.
Personally, if that's the case, I'm disappointed in Bill Graham, who showed rare leadership when he was the first senior minister in Ottawa to deal with the tsunami disaster in the South pacific.
C'mon, Bill, do the right thing for Wenzel!